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Ireland’s economy grew by close to 5pc in the first half of 2016 and by 6pc last year Davy Stockbrokers has said.

Despite recently published figures from the Central Statistics Office that pointed to 26.3pc growth in domestic GDP last year, Davy believes underlying growth was much lower last year.
Davy analyst Conall MacCoille also said that growth in the opening six months of the year was much higher than the official GDP data which signalled a 2.1pc contraction in the first quarter of the year.

Mr Maccoille said the CSO figures published back in July, which were at the time deemed as “farcical and meaningless”, have “undermined” confidence in official statistics.
“Looking forward, we are now monitoring short-term indicators closely for any negative impact from Brexit. Indeed, Ireland’s composite PMI fell to 56.5 in July, down sharply from 59.2 in June, but was still the strongest across the range of developed economies surveyed.

“Other indicators have remained robust. However, the next revision to our forecast for Irish GDP to grow by 4pc in 2017 is likely to be down,” Mr MaCcoille said in a note.